If hope is the thing with feathers
What happens when those fly?
Should breeze shake loose the silky plumes
And blow them all sky high?

When feathers disappear from hope
they leave the naked mass
of optimistic cheer to roll
still gleaming in the grass.

Hope perseveres with wings or no.
Hope lives in many forms.
It may yet be a feathery thing
It may have many arms.

Hope may be sleek and circular,
Or square or tough or bold.
Import lies not in what hope wears,
but in how we choose to hold.